KICK-ASS ****
Dir: Matthew Vaughan (15, 117 mins)
A superhero film with no real superhero, peopled instead by a nerdy kid who wants to be a vigilante, a foul-mouthed 11-year-old girl with skills to make Tarantino proud, and Nicolas Cage doing his best Adam West impression. Director Matthew Vaughan and writer Jane Goldman follow up the family-oriented Stardust with this off-the-wall, riotously entertaining comic book film. Kick-Ass follows Dave, played by Nowhere Boy’s Aaron Johnson, a geek that girls believe to be gay, as he be- comes an ineffectual masked vigilante. He dresses in a green wetsuit and is mostly beaten senseless by villains, until he gets metal in his bones, deadened nerve endings and calls himself Kick-Ass. He soon becomes an internet phenomenon and comes to the attention of crime boss Mark Strong who believes the green suited freak to be the one killing his people. Unfortunately, he’s mistaken: the killers are actually Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz), an inspired fa- ther/daughter blitzkrieg of costumed violence, that’ll have the Daily Mail in a froth. Their murderous paths are all about to cross, however, and how will Kick Ass fare then? Director Vaughan is clearly having a ball, as are the cast. Violent, funny and satisfying, Kick-Ass gives the superhero genre an…er…ass-kicking.
Opens Apr 2
CEMETERY JUNCTION ****
Dir: Stephen Merchant/Ricky Gervais (15, 90 mins)
Following the so-so performance and critical reception to The Invention Of Lying, Ricky Gervais returns from flying solo in Hollywood to safer territory and constant collaborator Stephen Merchant. Cemetery Road, however, is no cringe-inducing Brent-fest or extension of their TV universe; it is, instead, a bittersweet coming of age tale set in 1970s Reading. The film follows twenty-somethings Freddie (Chris- tian Cooke), Bruce (Tom Hughes) and Snork (Jack Doolan) as they negotiate the world of adulthood, girls and what they want to do with their lives. Freddie dreams of escaping their small town life, and the life led by his Dad, played by Gervais, who has toiled away at the same job for years. Freddie’s chance meeting with an old girlfriend throws the trio’s friendship and prospects into the balance. Low-key and well observed, this is as far from the excesses of Hollywood as can be imagined, both in tone and content. Some star wattage comes in the shape of cameos from Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson and Matthew Goode, but this remains a simple pean to the potential of youth and where life could lead. It’s no laughter fest, but it is immensely warm and charming. Opens Apr 14
THE LOSERS ***
Dir: Sylvain White (15, 90 mins)
Sounding very much like a retread of The A-Team, The Losers is based on DC Comics’ comic book and has several special forces betrayed and left for dead follow- ing a top secret mission to Bolivia. They vow revenge, and go searching for the man who tried to assassinate them. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, excellent as The Comedian in Watchmen, is the Hannibal of the group, Chris Evans the computer geek, with the quintet rounded out by The Wire’s Idris Elba, Columbus Short and Oscar Janeada. Along the way they meet Aisha, a rather sexy butt-kick- ing Zoe Saldana who also wants revenge but for different reasons. Maintaining deep cover by going from action sequence to action sequence and quip to quip, The Losers close in on their man, Jason Patric, with explosive results. Silly but fun, The Losers is a far from original action film, but has enough good humour to get it past the clichés.
Opens April 9
CENTURION ***
Dir: Neil Marshall (15, 100 mins)
Following the Mad Max tribute Doomsday, Brit director Neil Marshall returns to the screen with this gritty Ro- man soldier action film. Set in the second century AD, against the backdrop of the Roman conquest of Britain, it stars Michael Fassbender as Quintus Dias, a Roman general and son of a gladiator. He leads a team to recover a captured General, played by Dominic West, from a Pict camp. In the process he kills the son of the Pict leader, a banshee-like Olga Kuryenko, and he and his greatly reduced soldiers find themselves being hunted down amidst the Scottish highlands. Also starring David Mor- risey, Noel Clarke and Bernard Hill, Centurion boasts a lot of slashing and stabbing, testosterone and an action hero lead for the excellent Fassbender. Marshall can choreograph action, and the highlands have never looked better or chillier. Centurion is a raw, gritty affair that may not be historically accurate but gets the pulse pounding.
Opens Apr 23
DEAR JOHN **
Dir: Lasse Hallstrom (12A, 105 mins)
A bittersweet slush-fest with pretensions and a contem- porary backdrop based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote that other bittersweet novel-turned-slush- fest The Notebook. Here muscle-bound Channing Tatum falls for Mamma Mia!’s Amanda Seyfried during two weeks’ leave from the army. He is then recalled to service in the wake of 9/11 and the pair of them write letters to each other, pledging their love. Tatum is troubled, wouldn’t you know it: his dad – played by Richard Jen- kins, an actor far too classy for this nonsense – has mild autism, a fact he seems to have been oblivious of until Seyfried tells him. But zipping over those issues, Tatum promises to wed his new love in 12 months when he gets back from service. As you might guess from the title, things do not work out well. This is by-the-numbers droll- ery aimed squarely at people who watched The Notebook and cry at pretty people squinting. Opens Apr 14
multiple personalities who are all murder victims. DOGTOOTH (18) Mystical, saucy and often baffling, this is still a dreamy must-see Greek drama about a group of youngsters developing their own codes of conduct in a remote country house. IT’S A WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE (15) Gurinda Chadha’s latest film is a comedy about an Indian mother who goes too far with her obsession with marriage, and becomes a serial killer. As you do. GENTLEMEN BRONCOS (15) Oddball comedy Western with Jermaine off Flight Of The Conchords, directed by the same people behind Napoleon Dynamite.
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